The assault on the franchise continues in earnest. Just in the last several weeks, lawsuits have been brought against Pennsylvania, Nevada and New Jersey, challenging those states’ attempts to expand mail voting in the face of the pandemic. In New Jersey, for example, the president’s campaign is attempting to enjoin the governor’s order that each registered voter receive a ballot without the need for an application process. (California is allowing the same ease of absentee voting.) In Pennsylvania, the president’s campaign tried to halt the use of voter drop boxes, an idea that will help diminish risks of Post Office instability; this issue is also being litigated in the state court.

In response to this conduct, a slew of nonpartisan organizations are involving themselves in these fights. Examples include the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which has a hotline to assist voters with questions about voting procedures (https://www.866ourvote.org/volunteer/). Notably, the American Bar Association just announced that, along with the National Association of Secretaries of State and the National Association of State Election Directors, it has launched “Poll Worker Esq.”, a national nonpartisan effort to recruit lawyers and law students to become poll workers (https://www.nass.org/can-i-vote/become-a-poll-worker); similarly, the Association of Pro Bono Counsel (https://apbco.org/) has partnered with the Brennan Center (https://www.brennancenter.org/) and the Lawyers Committee to produce guides for how people become poll workers.